


The Morrígan

by milokno



Category: Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe, Angst, Blood, Character Death, Death, F/M, Gen, Horror Elements, Other, alien - Freeform, space
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-20
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:01:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27119947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/milokno/pseuds/milokno
Summary: Although the other ship had sent out a distress signal, no one aboardVishpala IIhad responded when Marvin and Chase had tried to contact them again.There was only silence.It had been deafening.
Relationships: Chase Brody/Stacy Brody, Marvin the Magnificent/Jackieboy Man
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	1. Five...

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!!  
> this fic was inspired by an [edit](https://oh-itskitkat.tumblr.com/post/631870148402446337/these-aliens-are-not-cute-day-13-of) made by [oh-itskitkat](https://oh-itskitkat.tumblr.com/) on tumblr!! you should go check her out if you haven't already.

It’s been four months since Chase last saw his kids. Sure, he’s got photographs, and he’s seen the kids through a computer screen— heard their little voices as they talked to him during their weekly calls. So he knows he won’t forget their faces, won’t forget how when they laugh at something he’s said his lips split into a wide grin at the sound.

While he might be able to see his kids, it’s been a little over a hundred days since he got to be _with_ them. It’s been months since he got to braid his daughter’s hair, and since he got to sing his son to sleep.

On the bright side, Chase only has three months, one week, and five days until his feet will touch the earth again. All he has to do is make it through another one hundred and four days and he can see his kids. Just another hundred days and he can see the trees and feel the ground beneath his feet. Then he can hear the rain pouring outside their house and feel the thunder rumble in his bones.

Then he can see Stacy.

He longs for the brush of her lips against his own. He can still feel her if he concentrates hard enough. How her lips, stained red from the lipstick she’d been applying when Chase had interrupted her, would curl into a smile. How the bubbly laughter that fell from those lips made Chase’s eyes light up like the neon signs that hung on the window outside the laundromat they went to when they’d first moved in together.

Chase rolls over so he’s lying on his back, rather than his side. He’s aware that he’s going to have to crawl out from the warmth of his bed soon. He’s awake, has been staring out into the expanse of _space_ and _stars_ and _nothing_ beside him for a few minutes already. The only thing between Chase and all that _nothing_ is a thick layer of glass. It’s only when another memory of Stacy and the kids begins to gnaw at him that he decides it’s time to stop moping.

He stretches his arms high above his head, fingers curling as his back wails in agony. Chapped lips part in a long, drawn out yawn, and the fabric of the white t-shirt he’s wearing is tugged upwards, revealing a bit of the pale skin of his stomach to the empty, cold air of the _Morrígan_.

His bare feet tap on the floor as he makes his way towards the common room. He knows he’s not the first one awake— the bed tucked into the wall to the left of his own had been empty, which means that Henrik’s also awake, at least.

Chase doesn’t like being alone, here, on the _Morrígan_. Space is already so empty, so devoid of _anything_ , and he wants to spend as little time alone as he can.

As expected, Henrik’s sitting at the table in the common room. He can smell the other man’s coffee from the other side of the room— it’s practically strong enough to wake Chase up without him even having to drink any. With how much caffeine Henrik gets into his system on a daily basis, it’s a surprise he ever manages to fall asleep at all.

The bags under his eyes, visible behind the thin-rimmed, circular glasses he wears, would make Chase wonder if he ever _does_ sleep. He’s heard the man snore, though, so he knows for a fact that the man can sleep. Unfortunately.

He watches as Henrik pushes the glasses up the bridge of his nose with his middle finger. The glasses look incredibly large on his face, and, without the beard, Chase is positive he’d look like a little kid.

An angry, yelling kid, but a kid, nonetheless.

The chair Henrik’s sitting on has been pulled out so he can prop his socked feet up onto the table. Chase would scrunch his nose up at the sight of his feet on the table— they eat there, for Christ’s sake— if it weren’t for the look on Henrik’s face. There’s something somber about the sight of him. Something that nearly makes him forget what he’d have been scrunching his nose up at in the first place.

Chase doesn’t want to be the one to break the silence.

His own selfish need to not be alone right now gets the better of him, though, and he continues to step into the common room. He yawns again, as he walks, but he stifles the noise behind the back of his hand this time. As Chase nears the table, the other man looks up. His feet slide off the table and smack onto the floor with a _thud_.

He decides to not think too much about the thing the other man is cradling in his hands— hiding from him, Chase realizes— or the glassy, wet look in his eyes.

Looks like they’d both been reminiscing this morning.

“Good morning, Brody,” Henrik’s voice is strained, and it’s gruffer than usual. His accent is thick, like a fog concealing any emotion that would’ve normally been surrounding his words. Chase continues to stare into red-rimmed eyes, and he doesn’t look away until Henrik averts his gaze back down to the mug on the table in front of him.

Chase walks past the table, towards the counter where the coffee pot is. BB, Commander Marvin’s cat, is sprawled out on the counter. He pets the cat’s head, gently, before pulling a mug down from the cabinet. He pours the murky, black liquid into the cup, and his eyebrows shoot up to his hairline when the smell of overly strong coffee wafts up and smacks him in the face.

“Mornin’.” He turns his body around so he’s facing Henrik— who’s now holding his coffee mug with his right hand. If his grip was any tighter, Chase is pretty sure the cup would shatter. He brings his own mug up to his lips so he can blow on the liquid to cool it down. When he takes a sip, it leaves a bad aftertaste on his tongue. He continues, “D’you sleep okay, Hen?”

Henrik nods.

The bags under his eyes beg to differ, but Chase won’t press him— not today. Today’s rough for the both of them.

Rather than pulling out another chair, he sits on top of the table to Henrik’s right. He places his coffee cup beside his thigh, where he’ll most likely forget about it until he pours it down the drain. The German’s eyes flicker up to his. Once their eyes meet, Chase asks, “Are the others awake?”

Henrik hums around the coffee on his tongue. He swallows the drink before he says, “Jackson is awake. Saw him heading to the showers a couple of minutes before you got up.”

“How about Captain and Tennille?” Marvin and Jackie.

“Been listening to Jackson’s old records, again, have you?”

“His music taste is exquisite.” He says, deadpan. When Henrik laughs, a grin forms across Chase’s lips. “Do you plan on answerin’ my question, or am I gonna have to find them myself?”

Henrik’s eyes are practically glowing behind his glasses, and a small smirk is playing on his lips, “Ah, yes. I think those two are doing quite alright.” It’s Chase’s turn to laugh. It’s a loud sort of noise that erupts from his throat. Henrik continues, his own laughter causing him to stumble over his words, “If you— if you know what I mean.”

Chase, of course, knows _exactly_ what Henrik means.

Marvin, commander of the _Morrígan_ , and Jackie have been dating for some time. The only reason the rest of the crew knows at all is because poor Jameson had walked in on them a month into the mission. It had taken weeks for Chase to get any details out of him, but it was worth it.

They sit there, together, for a few minutes. Their smiles are still plastered to their faces, and their cheeks are flushed pink from laughter. It’s quiet, now, but it isn’t uncomfortable. It’s comforting, in a way.

The word Chase is looking for is _bittersweet_.

He takes another sip of his coffee. As he lowers the cup from his lips, his eyes flicker back to Henrik. The other man opens his mouth to speak.

“Brody—” Chase’s last name spills from Henrik’s parted lips. The other man’s eyebrows press together above his eyes as he struggles to find the words he wants. He blinks a couple times, and when he opens his mouth again a small noise forms in his throat.

Before Henrik can get another word out, though, he’s interrupted by SAM, the _Morrígan’s_ AI system.

SAM’s voice echoes through the common room. It’s calm, mechanical. There’s something interesting in the way their voice is able to bend and contort itself around each syllable, while still maintaining zero emotion. Chase’s eyes widen as he tries to comprehend the words, and Henrik appears to be struggling to understand as well.

His voice is shaking, slightly, when he says, “Can you repeat that, please, SAM?”

_There’s an incoming distress signal from_ Vishpala II.

Chase pushes himself into a standing position with his palms. The floor is cold, unforgiving, on his bare feet. Out of the corner of his eyes, he can see that Henrik’s standing as well. The lock eyes, for just a second.

His coffee cup, as well as Henrik’s, are left, forgotten, on the table.

In the blink of an eye, the two men are walking towards the front of the _Morrígan_ — towards the cockpit. They’re walking briskly, and the taps their feet are making against the floor are audible.

For only a crew of five people, The _Morrígan_ is big. In times like this, Chase wishes it were smaller.

In-between the common room and the cockpit is the bathrooms. Jackson’s standing at the door, eyes wide as he watches Chase and Henrik near him. His hair is still wet from his shower, and the sleeves of the shirt he’s wearing are rolled up to his elbows. He must not have been able to hear SAM in the shower, because the towel he has thrown over his forearm sways as he signs, _What’s going on_?

Beside him, Henrik hastily signs back an answer. He speaks as he signs, “One of ISRO’s has trouble.”

Jackson turns to toss the towel into the bathroom, lacking the time to care for where it lands. He exits the bathroom and follows after them, having to sprint to catch up.

Marvin and Jackie are already in the cockpit. Marvin’s got their arms folded across their chest, and they twist their head to nod at Chase and the others when they step into the room. Jackie’s leaning over the computer, typing something that Chase can’t make out from where he’s standing.

Chase turns his attention back to Marvin. “Commander?”

“No one’s been able to contact any of the crew on _Vishpala II_ for weeks.” They sign as they speak, and they back up slowly so they’re standing beside Jackie at the computers. “Not us and not anybody back home, either.”

_Strange_ , Jameson signs.

Marvin hums in agreement, before continuing, “Folks at home have asked us to check it out. We’re nearby, after all. All we have to do is make sure everything’s alright.”

“Make sure everybody is alive.” Henrik adds.

The commander looks solemn at his addition, though they don’t deny it.

“Jackson, prepare the ship for any survivors.” Out of the corners of his eyes, Chase can see him nod. He exits the cockpit through the door they’d entered through together a few moments before. Marvin turns to look at Jackie, who’s still standing at the computer beside them, “Give me the exact location of the _Vishpala II_.” Another nod.

“Brody, Schneeplestein.” There’s something apologetic in the press of Marvin’s lips, and Chase almost doesn’t want them to speak. He already knows what they’re going to say. “Happy Father’s Day.”

—

From the outside, the _Vishpala II_ looks perfectly normal. There’s no visible damage on the exterior of the ship, and there’s nothing that stands out as inherently wrong at all. Despite this, Chase knows that something isn’t right.

Although the other ship had sent out a distress signal, no one aboard _Vishpala II_ had responded when Marvin and Chase had tried to contact them again. They’d received no response when they’d informed the other crew that they were going to connect— and then board— their ship.

There was only silence.

It had been deafening.

While Henrik and Jameson were busy preparing the _Morrígan_ for any possible injured members of the other ship’s crew, Chase was left in the cockpit with Marvin and Jackie. The moment they’d connected the ships together, he’d volunteered to go. Jackie had quickly said that he’d go as well, though Marvin seemed far more hesitant to let him go than they had Chase.

He’d left the cockpit after that, as to give Marvin and Jackie some privacy.

The walk to the airlock had been quiet, uneventful.

If it hadn’t been for his heart hammering away in his chest, Chase might’ve been able to forget about the _Vishpala II_ , as well as the ship’s crew. He might’ve been able to drown out the sound of Marvin’s and Jackie’s hushed argument behind him. But he can’t.

Chase veers to the left, and he’s standing at the airlock door. There’s a keypad on the wall beside it. He quickly smashes four of the buttons, his eyes unfocused, before he clicks the little, green circle at the bottom. There’s a long beep, followed by a loud, whirring noise, and then the door is sliding open. He steps into the airlock, and the door shuts behind him with a click.

He’s halfway through putting on his spacesuit— one of three total on the _Morrígan_ — when the airlock door opens again. Chase turns his head to stare at Jackie, who steps inside with a small nod. Silently, Jackie begins to put on his own suit.

Chase notices the tear tracks on the other man’s cheeks, though he decides against mentioning it.

For the second time, the door slides shut.

They continue to put on their suits. Jackie’s gaze keeps flickering from his suit and up to the door opposite the one they’d entered through. After he repeats the action a few times, he murmurs, “ _Vishpala’s_ on the other side, huh?”

Chase hums, and he stands. He grabs a helmet from the shelf behind him and places it onto his head. The visor lights up, showing Chase his vitals, as well as the temperature and oxygen levels outside the suit.

When he turns his head back to Jackie, the other man is putting on his helmet as well. His visor lights up, and then he’s standing next to Chase.

Jackie tilts his head— the way he imagines a puppy might— and lifts his gloved fist up to the space in-between the two of them. A grin spreads across his lips when he says, “Good luck in there, bro average.” His tone is light, but Chase can see through it. He’s scared. They both are.

Chase knocks his own fist against Jackie’s.

”Right back at ya.” His voice is shaky, though he tries his best to twist his lips together into a small smile.

Chase takes a couple steps forward, so he’s standing in front of the keypad of the other side of the airlock. He sucks in a long, shaky breath through slightly parted lips, and then he’s inputting the code. There’s a long beep, just like before, and then the door lets out a buzz. Chase can feel the noise in his bones, and in the way his stomach drops.

The door slides open and the two men are met with darkness. The lights from the airlock flood into the other ship, coating everything it can reach in a golden glow.

Jackie, despite being behind Chase, is the first to step onto the _Vishpala II_.

“Oxygen levels are stable,” Jackie murmurs, though he doesn’t remove his helmet.

Chase steps onto the _Vishpala II_.

The airlock door slides shut behind them, and then they’re in darkness.

Besides his own breathing, as well as Jackie’s, the ship is silent. And for a ship with a crew of seven people— seven people who no one has been able to contact for weeks— something about the calmness is wrong. Chase motions to the left side of the hallway before tapping his chest with gloved fingers. Jackie nods his head, once, before tilting his head to the right and pointing at himself.

He starts walking down the hall, which curves slightly to the right as it goes. He’s moving slowly, as though if he went any faster he’d get lost in the shadows. When he glances over his shoulder, he can see Jackie walking the other way, at the other end of the hall.

Most of the doors in the hallway are locked, but Chase peers his head into the few rooms that he _can_ get into. All the rooms are empty, and if it weren’t for the fact that the ship is a mess, Chase would’ve assumed no one had ever been aboard the _Vishpala II_ at all.

After a few minutes, he finds another room that he can get into. With, Chase steps into the room. It’s a lounge, of sorts— similar to the common room on the _Morrígan_. There are chairs thrown about the room, and there’s a table propped up against one of the doors to Chase’s left.

He takes another step into the room, still only a few feet from the door he’s entered through.

There’s a chair on the ground in front of him, but there’s something behind it that Chase’s eyes are stuck on. Admittedly, it takes him a few moments to realize what it is. When he does realize, however, he stares at it, eyes wide and unblinking.

Blood.

It’s blood.

His eyes drift upwards, slowly, so he’s staring at something else.

There’s a figure standing in the center of the room. It’s hidden by shadows, and Chase can’t make anything out in the dark. There’s a faint, blue outline around it, and two little, glowing dots at the top of the figure.

_Eyes._

Chase continues to stare at it, he doesn’t think he could look away if he wanted to.

He’s losing his mind, he’s sure of it. He’s seeing thing that aren’t really there.

Chase backs out of the room, slowly. His eyes never leave the figure in the shadows.

Distantly, to his left, he hears Jackie scream.

“ _Brody_!”

The thing’s face— or, at least, what Chase assumes is a face— turns. It slowly twists to the side, towards the direction where Jackie had screamed. A strangled gasp is torn from Chase’s throat. He nearly falls backwards in his haste to get to Jackie, to _get away_.

Chase has never run so fast in his life. His eyes are so wide, he can’t _see_ — fuck, it’s so _dark_. His breathing’s so loud it’s drowning out the sound of his footsteps. He’d call out for Jackie, but his throat isn’t working.

He passes the airlock.

He finds Jackie standing in the middle of the hallway. When he’s within reach, he grabs onto his shoulders, whether it’s in an attempt to ground himself or to get Jackie’s attention, he doesn’t know. There’s a thousand words on Chase’s tongue, but he can’t speak.

Jackie won’t make eye contact. He won’t look away from the door in front of him.

With a gloved hand, Chase pushes the door open.

There, on the other side of the door, is the crew of _Vishpala II_.

They’re dead.


	2. Four...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Without his permission, Chase’s eyelids slip shut. His hands come up to rub at the skin just beneath his left eye in an attempt to keep the tears stuck in his eyelashes from falling down his cheeks. He hears a gasp, though it sounds so far away, and his eyes open.
> 
> The lights are flickering.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im finally back with a second chapter!! sorry for the wait, i had a Rough month lol
> 
> i hope it was worth the wait!!

Everything’s a blur, after that.

After pushing the door open, Chase’s eyes had met a woman’s. She was a member of _Vishpala II’s_ crew, one of six others on the opposite side of the door. She couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, and though Chase is only in his thirties, twenty-five just seems so _young_ in comparison.

He had asked Stacy to marry him when he was twenty-five, for Christ’s sake.

The dead woman’s eyes had reminded him of what he sees every time he looks outside the _Morrígan_. There was no life, no emotion— no joy or passion or fear.

There was nothing.

Before he can get lost in the woman’s eyes, Chase reaches forward and wraps a gloved hand around the doorknob. He swings the door towards himself, immediately regretting how hard he’d slammed the door shut when he sees the way Jackie nearly jumps out of his spacesuit at the noise.

He eventually manages to tear the other man’s eyes away from the door, gets Jackie to look into his own eyes, to breathe with him.

As his breathing begins to even out, Chase’s eyes drift to the side of Jackie’s helmet. In the reflection of his visor, Chase sees the figure he’d seen in _Vishpala II’s_ common room. He grabs onto the other man’s arm, begins tugging him towards the airlock, towards the _Morrígan_ , before he even has time to blink.

He stares, wide-eyed, into the darkness ahead of them. Everywhere he looks, he sees that thing hiding in the shadows. It’s not really there. It’s just his mind playing tricks on him.

His grip on Jackie’s arm tightens, nonetheless.

As they get closer to the door, Chase brings his free hand up to the keypad. Every time he presses a button, the keypad lets out a _beep_ , and the noise punches the breath from his lungs. He must be doing something wrong because the door isn’t opening— _why the fuck is the door not opening?_

With every failed attempt to open the door, he grows more impatient, more desperate. His fingers get faster. He’s being careless, and he knows it, but his awareness of that fact doesn’t seem to be helping him any. Although Chase isn’t a religious man— has _never_ been a religious man— he thanks God when the airlock door finally slides open. It’s a whisper spoken under unsteady breaths.

The lights in the airlock flood into Chase’s still too-wide eyes. He swears that, just as the door had opened, the figure was standing in the center of the airlock. It’s gone the moment his eyes had landed on it, and his breath gets caught in his throat whether it was really there or not. He can’t trust his eyes anymore.

Jackie practically falls into the airlock. He tears the helmet off his head, and his knees hit the ground with a _thud_. The door slides shut behind them just as a cry falls from the other man’s lips. Chase is shaking, his breathing reduced to small gasps that are punched from his lungs. He doesn’t know what to do.

As Chase removes his own helmet, the door on the other side of the airlock opens. Before the door’s even finished opening, Marvin’s stepping inside. In the time it takes him to blink, Marvin’s on the floor beside Jackie, shushing him. His cries only grow louder, and the noise makes Chase’s heart swell.

“ _Breathe_ , baby,” Marvin says, their voice hushed and gentle. “Breathe for me.”

It takes Chase a few moments to realize that his eyes have drifted down to Jackie’s arm. There’s a rip in his suit— where Chase had wrapped his fingers around his arm as he dragged him back to the airlock— but it doesn’t click. Before he can even think of anything to say, his attention turns to Henrik and Jameson, who are standing at the door.

Jameson signs, _What happened?_

After a long while, Chase tells them everything.

—

Chase doesn’t mention the _Vishpala II_ — or any of the other things he’d seen on board the ship— to his kids. He can see in the way the corners of Stacy’s lips are tugged downwards, and in the way her eyebrows are pressed together, though, that she knows something happened.

Their weekly calls, admittedly, are always a little awkward. Kids aren’t exactly known for their ability to speak comfortably over the phone, and he supposes video calls are the same. Stacy will typically bring up things they’d done during the week until their four-year-old daughter gets so excited about something that she forgets Chase is thousands of miles away.

Their son, a couple weeks shy of his second birthday, doesn’t talk much during their calls either. His eyes, however, never leave the screen, like he’s enamored by the sight of Chase alone.

His daughter is in the middle of telling him all about how she and her baby brother had stayed up the night before to look up at the stars— to see if they could find him, amidst all the _nothing_. He doesn’t plan on telling them that it’s impossible, that he’s too far away.

She’s still rambling when the door behind them opens. His sister-in-law pokes her head into the room. She waves at Chase, a smile on her lips, before turning her gaze to her sister. Her voice is quiet, hushed, “D’you want me to take the kids off your hands for a bit?”

Stacy nods, and her eyes flicker back to Chase’s once her sister picks the toddler up off her lap. For the second time, his daughter wishes him a Happy Father’s Day, and then she’s walking with her aunt into the other room.

The door behind Stacy closes, and they’re in silence. Chase squirms slightly on his bed, and his eyes can no longer seem to meet his wife’s. He opens his mouth to say something, but before he can form any words, Stacy’s voice enters the air.

Her voice is monotone, like she’s fighting the emotions back, “Are you okay?”

Chase, honestly, doesn’t know how to answer— doesn’t know what to start with. After a moment, he wets his lips, “Another ship, uh— one of ISRO’s sent out a signal.”

He watches Stacy blink, watches her process what he’s just said. She motions with one of her hands: _Go on._

“Jackie found the crew. They were— they were dead.” Stacy makes a sharp noise in her throat, but Chase continues before she can respond, “There was something _there_ , Stace. There was something on that ship that—” He has to stop himself, has to force himself to breathe, “It wasn’t _human_.”

It’s quiet for a long moment. It isn’t until he speaks again that he realizes he’s crying, “If I don’t— if I don’t make it—”

“Chase, you can’t just—”

His face is so _wet_. “You have to promise me that—”

“No!” Stacy’s voice is loud. She hasn’t yelled once during their calls, not until now. Chase looks up, meets her eyes. She’s crying, now, too. “I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

“Promise me you’ll be okay? _Please_?” His voice breaks on the last word.

“Only if you can promise me the same.”

Chase smiles, through his tears. He won’t lie to her— _can’t_ lie to her.

Instead, “I love you.”

—

Chase’s eyes are still red-rimmed and glossy when he finally emerges from his and Henrik’s shared bedroom. It’s been a little over an hour since his call with Stacy and the kids had ended— since he’d told her about the _thing_ he’d seen while he was in the _Vishpala II._

His hands are still shaking when he starts to walk towards the common room. His eyes trace over the hexagonal pattern in the tile floor beneath his feet, and he begins to absently twist the wedding ring on his left hand clockwise.

Although the other four members of the _Morrigan’s_ crew are already in the common room, it’s quieter than it normally is. There’s a coffee table in one of the corners of the room, which the crew’s all sitting around.

Jackie and Marvin are curled up on the chair together. They have their legs tangled around one another in a heap of limbs, and Marvin has one of their arms thrown around their partner’s shoulders. Henrik is lying across the couch, his eyes closed, and Jameson’s sitting cross-legged on the floor on the other side of the coffee table.

Before walking towards the rest of the crew, Chase grabs a chair from the table he’d been sitting at when he had first woken up this morning. He can hear Jackie speaking, though his voice is distant, “They couldn’t have sent out the distress signal. They were already dead.”

Henrik asks, “Then who did?”

Chase places the chair onto the floor beside the sofa. The back of the chair is facing the rest of the crew, and he straddles the chair, one of his legs firmly planted on either side. He crosses his arms over the backrest, propping his chin up onto his forearms.

His voice is calmer than he’d been expecting when he says, “Their AI.” If any of the crew knows it, and he _knows_ they do, none of them mention how it takes a direct order from a crew member to send out a distress signal.

He sees Jackie nod at him, from all the way across the coffee table, but Chase doesn’t risk meeting his eyes. He’d only see the woman’s eyes anyway. Chase presses his lips together in what he hopes is a smile.

Marvin seems to read the discomfort in the room for what it is.

“Right now,” They start, shifting slightly on the chair they’re sharing with Jackie, “If you could be _anywhere_ , where would you be?”

The change of topic is a blessing.

Jameson is the first to respond.

He smiles as he signs, _When I was little, my family went to Yellowstone. A weekend camping trip in the mountains._ He pauses, for a moment, before he continues, _I couldn’t sleep that night, so my sister and I stayed up together. We looked up at the expanse of stars above us for hours._

Chase’s lips twist upwards into a pained smile. He signs as he says, “My kids did the same thing last night.”

Jameson’s eyebrows raise up to his hairline, and a wide smile spreads across his face.

_It’s the moment that made me realize I wanted to be one of those little specks in the sky. I’ve always wanted to go back, just to feel the earth around me again._

It’s only after Jameson stops signing that Chase realizes how silent the common room is.

Henrik slides his glasses off his face. With his other hand, he rubs at his forehead, and he clears his throat, “My daughter, she was eleven when I brought her home for the first time.” His voice is rough, like he’s having to force the words from his lips. “I promised her from day one that I would take her to the beach.”

“Did you?” Jackie asks.

“Never had the time— _made_ the time.”

Chase’s eyebrows furrow together. “Where is she now?”

“Last I heard, she got accepted into MIT.” Once he’s done speaking, he motions at the chair that Jackie and Marvin are sitting on together with the hand still holding his glasses.

Jackie hums, gently.

“It might sound lame,” As they speak, Marvin leans forward to pick the Morrígan’s sixth crew member— their cat, BB— from up off the floor, “But so long as I’m with Jackie, it doesn’t matter where I am.” They the place the cat onto their lap, and BB begins to purr. The noise is similar to a car engine revving up. They turn to look at Jackie, “How about you, mo laoch?”

“Well, as sweet as that is, babe—”

“You asshole.” Marvin says, but there’s a smile splitting their face in half.

Jackie laughs. It’s a bubbly noise, and it echoes across the coffee table and into Chase’s ears. He doesn’t hear Jackie’s laugh, though. No, he hears _Stacy’s_.

Jackie’s voice brings him back to the present, “I’ve always wanted to see New York.”

“I’ll just have to take you then, won’t I?”

“You’d better.”

They kiss each other, then, and Chase has to look away when his heart pangs at the sight.

Jameson asks, _Where would you be, Chase?_

He doesn’t have to think before he replies, “Home.”

At his response, Henrik glances up at him. One of his eyes is hidden behind his hand, pinching at the bridge of his nose. His face is calm— his expression blank, but not in a bad way.

Jameson’s lips form a small smile. He can tell, by the glint in the other man’s eyes, that Chase’s answer had been exactly what he was expecting.

He’s okay with being predictable about this.

“I want to be there for it all.” He’s fiddling with the ring on his left hand again, though he’s not sure when he started. “The good, the bad— all of it.”

Without his permission, Chase’s eyelids slip shut. His hands come up to rub at the skin just beneath his left eye in an attempt to keep the tears stuck in his eyelashes from falling down his cheeks. He hears a gasp, though it sounds so far away, and his eyes open.

His eyes land on Henrik first. The other man’s in the middle of sitting up, his eyebrows furrowed above his wide eyes. Out of the corner of his vision, he sees Jameson jump up from where he’d been sitting on the floor. Jackie and Marvin are untangling their legs, and BB jumps back down onto the floor and scurries away. Chase pushes himself up into a standing position.

The lights are flickering.

“Fuck’s sake.” Marvin murmurs the curse under their breath.

Although he’s laughing, and there’s a smile plastered to his lips, Jackie’s voice is shaking, “We just can’t catch a break, huh?”

Henrik, who hasn’t moved from where he’s sitting on the couch, makes a noise in agreement.

Chase is still standing beside the chair he’d brought over from the table in the center of the common room. They need to get to the electrical room, which is located along the same hallway they’d walked down to get to the cockpit this morning, to fix the lights.

In the time it takes Chase to blink, Jackie and Marvin have started walking towards the hallway on the wall opposite from where the crew’s standing now. Chase follows their lead.

The _Morrígan_ is cold. It always is.

Shivers run across his arms before travelling up to the back of his neck. He’s not sure if the chills can be blamed entirely on the cold air of the ship, though.

He picks up his pace when Marvin opens the door that leads into the hallway.

The lights in the hallway are flickering as well, though they’re staying off for a lot longer than the lights in the common room are.

When Chase and Jameson follow the other members of the crew into the hallway, the door closes behind them with a sharp hiss.

Without the lights from the common room occasionally spilling into the hallway, it seems so much bigger. Chase can barely make out the hexagonal pattern in the tile floors beneath his feet. The white walls on either side of him feel like they are slowly getting closer.

He wonders, for a moment, if this is what being swallowed whole might feel like.

Chase feels something grab onto his arm. He jerks back, flinching so hard he nearly jumps out of his skin. His eyes are wide, and he sucks in a sharp breath through his clenched teeth. The grip on his arm tightens, slightly, and he cranes his neck to look behind him. Relief washes over him.

He smiles, gently.

It’s Jameson.

The other man’s hand squeezes his left arm, for just a moment longer, before his grip lessens. He keeps his fingers wrapped around Chase’s arm, keeps the contact between them. It’s like a lifeline, though he’s not sure who needs it more.

They continue walking.

Chase has walked down this hallway hundreds of times. This time, though, his heart’s beating so hard he can feel it in his ears. Each time he opens his eyes, he finds himself expecting the lights to be off completely, and for them to not come back on.

He can see the door to the cockpit ahead of them. Before they can get to it, though, they make a sharp turn to the right. After they turn, Jackie begins to walk faster. Marvin matches his pace, leaving Chase and Jameson to do the same.

“We’re getting close,” Jackie says, his voice loud. Although Chase might only be able to see the back of his head, he can _feel_ the smile in his words, “It’s at the end of this hallway.”

Jackie is the first to make it to the electrical room. He throws the door open and doesn’t waste any time in rushing inside. Marvin, who hadn’t been far behind him, enters the room second, and then they are both out of view.

Jameson’s grip on his arm falls so he can follow the other two members of the _Morrígan’s_ crew into the room. Chase stays in the hallway, his hand resting on the wall beside the door. There’s barely enough space for the others in the electrical room, and just the idea of being squished in there with them is causing his vision to spin.

As the others work on getting the lights fixed, he looks around himself. His eyebrows furrow above his eyes, and he presses his lips together into a thin line. Something’s gnawing at his subconscious, though he’s not sure what’s got his blood running cold.

The lights go out completely, before flickering back to life. Jackie looks up at the computer screen in front of him, his fingers crossed. After a few minutes of waiting, during which the lights don’t flicker out again, a smile forms across Jackie’s lips. “They’re back,” He sighs. “Oh, thank God.”

Marvin steps forward to press a kiss to the side of Jackie’s face. They whisper a small _I love you_ to Jackie that Chase has to strain to hear from where he’s standing at the door.

And then, watching them, the realization sets in.

“Where’s Henrik?” Chase asks.

Jackie’s head whips to the side so he can meet Chase’s eyes. He turns, looks to Jameson, and then to Marvin. His voice lacks the enthusiasm it had contained a few moments before, “Did anybody see him with us?”

Jameson signs, _I thought he was behind me._

Marvin mutters something under their breath, before brushing past Chase, who only just barely manages to get out of their way. The moment they’re out of the electrical room, they start sprinting back down the way they’d just come from. Jackie’s quick to follow after them, but Chase can see the fear in his eyes before his face is out of view.

Chase starts running down the hallway, too. He makes sure to look over his shoulder, just to be certain that Jameson is still with them.

Besides their footsteps, the _Morrígan_ is silent. The cold air whips Chase’s face as he runs, causing his eyes to sting and water. He blinks a few times, in an attempt to get his vision to clear, and in doing so his eyes land on something a few feet ahead of him. Before he can think about it, he comes to an abrupt stop.

Behind him, Jameson slows down so he’s standing next to Chase. Jackie stops running as well, but Marvin, however, continues to run. Jackie turns to look at Chase, and then to the door in front of them.

Jameson signs, _What’s wrong?_

“It was closed,” Chase’s voice is shaking nearly as much as his hands are. “We closed it after, didn’t we?”

The airlock door is open.

He hadn’t noticed it. When they were first walking towards the electrical room, he hadn’t seen that the door was wide open.

Chase takes a few steps forward so he can see into the airlock. It’s empty. Jameson puts his hand on his shoulder, and Chase’s eyes flicker from Jackie’s eyes to Jameson’s, before he turns his head back so he can look into the airlock, so he can _watch_ it.

Before the other two can respond, he continues, “It was—” He hates how small his voice sounds, “It _was_ closed, wasn’t it?”

Jameson nods, solemnly, like he doesn’t know how else to respond.

“Yeah—” Jackie clears his throat, “Yeah, it was.”

With his hand still on his shoulder, Jackie leads him away from the airlock. He says, “C’mon, Brody.”

Chase hums, and he starts to walk. He can’t get it out of his mind, though.

As they continue to try to catch up with Marvin, SAM’s voice— much louder than it ought to be— begins to echo throughout the hallway. It’s contorting around each vowel, and it raises in pitch with every other syllable spoken.

 _Ab_ normal _motion de_ —detected _in EAS_ — E— _EAS-Hallway 06_.

At the words, Jameson turns his head to look at Chase. His eyes are wide.

Beside him, Jackie croaks, “ _Shit._ ”

EAS-Hallway 06 is the hallway that his and Henrik’s bedroom is located along.

Jameson’s hand drops from his shoulder. SAM repeats the same string of words, however, this time its voice is glitching and contorting more often than it had a few moments before.

When the _Morrígan’s_ AI system begins stumbling over the word detected, the three of them start to run towards the common room. Their footsteps, which quicken with every breath that falls from their lips, are drowned out by its voice.

They’re running so fast that the white walls on either side of them are nothing more than a blur.

When they make it to the common room, Chase can’t breathe. His eyes are wide, unblinking, and he scans the room for Marvin, Henrik— hell, even that _thing_ he’d seen on board the _Vishpala II._

Jackie calls out Marvin’s name. He’d call out Henrik’s if he could get any words to form in his throat.

When he steps into EAS-Hallway 06, his eyes land on the back of Henrik’s head. He lets out a sigh of relief, and he starts to run down the hall towards him.

Henrik’s standing with his back to Chase.

A grin spreads across his lips as he says, “Oh, thank _God_ , we were so worried somethin’ had—”

Before he can finish, Henrik turns his head to look at Chase. Something about the look on his face, the numbness, causes the words to get stuck in his throat. He blinks a few times, before his eyes flicker down to the tile floors.

There’s blood pooling at Henrik’s feet.

“Hen—” Chase is stumbling over his words, “Hen, oh, my God—”

“It’s not—”

“Are you okay?” His voice is growing in volume, and he’s getting more desperate with every word. “What happened?”

“ _Brody!_ ” Henrik shouts. Chase flinches back slightly at the sheer loudness of his voice. His eyes flicker from the blood on the floor up to his eyes. Henrik continues, quieter this time, “It’s not mine.”

Behind him, Jackie cries out.

 _Marvin_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it only gets worse from here :)

**Author's Note:**

> comments are always appreciated!!


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